Documents Show E.P.A. Wants to Erase Greenhouse Gas Limits on Power Plants

Climate|Documents Show E.P.A. Wants to Erase Greenhouse Gas Limits on Power Plants

The Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a plan to eliminate all limits on greenhouse gases from coal and gas-fired power plants in the United States, according to internal agency documents reviewed by The New York Times.

In its proposed regulation, the agency argued that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from power plants that burn fossil fuels “do not contribute significantly to dangerous pollution” or to climate change because they are a small and declining share of global emissions. Eliminating those emissions would have no meaningful effect on public health and welfare, the agency said.

But in the United States, the power sector was the second biggest source of greenhouse gases, behind transportation, according to the most recent data available on the E.P.A. website. And globally, power plants account for about 30 percent of the pollution that is driving climate change.

The E.P.A. sent the draft to the White House for review on May 2. It could undergo changes before it is formally released and the public is given the opportunity to offer comments, likely in June.

The proposed regulation is part of a broader attack by the Trump administration on the established science that greenhouse gases threaten human health and the environment. Scientists have overwhelmingly concluded that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases from the burning of oil, gas and coal are dangerously heating the planet.

“Fossil fuel power plants are the single largest industrial source of climate destabilizing carbon dioxide in the United States, and emit pollution levels that exceed the vast majority of countries in the world,” said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental group.